Download the Algal Biofuels Roadmap draft document - Sandia

807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
beginning to show interest in algae as well. What‘s not known, of course, is which
entities will undertake the major funding investments needed to realize sustainable,
saleable algal biofuels.
Going Forward
Roadmapping a Strategy for Algal Biofuels Development & Deployment
The current state of knowledge regarding the economics of producing algal biofuels are
woefully inadequate to motivate targeted investment on a focused set of specific
challenges. Furthermore, because no algal biofuels production beyond the research scale
has ever occurred, detailed life cycle analysis (LCA) of algal biofuels production has not
been possible. For this reason, investment in algal biofuels research and development is
needed to identify and reduce risk. This supports private investments aimed at producing
algal biofuels at a commercial scale. In contrast, development of cellulosic biofuels
benefits from direct agricultural and process engineering lineage to the long-standing
agricultural enterprise of growing corn (a grass) for food (and recently, for conversion to
starch ethanol). There is no parallel agricultural enterprise equivalent for cultivating algae
at a similar scale. In short, the science of algae cultivation (algaculture), agronomy-foralgae,
if you will, does not exist. It is thus clear that a significant basic science and
applied engineering R&D effort including a rigorous techno-economic and LCA will be
required to fully realize the vision and potential of algae. The techno-economic analysis
can track the status of each contributing technology as per established benchmarks and
help identify opportunities for cost reduction. Additionally, the pervasive
interdependency of various processes and infrastructure in developing a cost-competitive
algae-to-biofuels supply chain necessitates systems analysis to ensure these entities work
together as an efficient system.
Thus a combination of systems, techno-economic, and life cycle analyses are critically
needed to gain greater understanding for informed decision making so that investments
can be targeted and optimized to greater positive effect. See section 11, Systems and
Techno-Economic Analyses of Algal Biofuel Deployment (page 157) for detailed
discussion and specifics.
Need for a Sizeable, Strategically Structured and Sustained Investment
In the years following the termination of the Aquatic Species Program, a small but
growing body of work has been reported in peer-reviewed journals dealing with topics
ranging from photobioreactor design to lipid metabolism, genetic manipulation, and
genomic analysis. The total body of work in the past years is relatively small, reflecting a
fairly low level of research funding. There is a large gap between the current reality of
commercial microalgae production technology and the goal of producing a microalgae
biomass with high oil content suitable for conversion to biofuels at a large scale.
One of the major unanimous conclusions of the Workshop was that a great deal of
RD&D is still necessary to make the algae-to-fuels process a reality and to engage the
private sector more aggressively, the associated level of risk must be reduced. The
Workshop participants agreed that the obvious first step toward achieving sustainable,
13